As the year 2020 turned, the virus and viral contagion started, once again, dominating public discourse in Europe. In the context of World Health Organisation’s formal naming COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January that year,¹ not only did ‘coronavirus’ enter our everyday language, but so did related terms such as ‘pandemic’, ‘social distancing’, ‘lockdown’, ‘self-isolate’, or ‘superspreader’ make it to the unprecedented Oxford Languages Word of the Year report for that year.